STATE OF ORISSA Vs. MAGUNI CHARAN SAHU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a reference made by the Assistant Sessions Judge, Aligarh, under section 395(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1973, for determining the interesting question, namely whether on voluntarily) surrendering to the Court, a person alleged against can be released on bail?

(2.) Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides: (1) A High Court of Session may direct: (a) that any person accused of an offence and in custody be released on bail, and if the offence is of the nature specified in sub-section (3) of section 437 may impose any condition which it considers necessary for the purposes mentioned in that sub-section; (b) that any condition imposed by a Magistrate when releasing any person on bail be set aside or modified: When is an accused in custody, is the main point in dispute.

(3.) In the case of Niranjan Singh and another v. Prabhakar Rajaram Kharote and other.1, a Division Bench held: The accused were not absconding but had appeared and surrendered before the Sessions Judge. Judicial jurisdiction arise only when persons are already in custody and seek the process of the court to be enlarged. We agree that no person accused of an offence can move the court for bail under section 439, Criminal Procedure Code unless he is in custody The Supreme Court asked the self-same question by saying: When is a person in custody, within the meaning of section 439 Criminal Procedure Code? When he is in duress either because he is held by the investigating agency or other police or allied authority or is under the control of the court having been remanded by judicial order, or having offered himself to the courts jurisdiction and submitted to its orders by physical presence. No lexical dexterity nor presidential profusion is needed to come to the realistic conclusion that he who is under the control of the court or is in the physical hold of an officer with coercive power is in custody for the purpose of section 439. This word is of elastic semantics but its core meaning is that the law has taken control of the person. The equivocatory quibbling and hide-and-seek nicoties sometimes heard in court that the police have taken a man into informal custody but not arrested him, have detained him for interrogation but not taken him into formal custody an a other like terminological dubieties are unfair evasions of the straight forwardness of the law. We need not dilate on this shady facet here because we are satisfied that the accused did physically submit before the Sessions Judge and the jurisdiction to grant bail thus arose. Custody, in the context of section 439, (we are not, be it noted, dealing with anticipatory bail under section 438) is physical control or at least physical presence of the accused in court coupled with submission to the jurisdiction and order of the court. He can be in custody not merely when the police arrests him before a Magistrate and gets a remand to judicial or other custody. He can be stated to be in judicial custody when he surrenders before the court and submits to its directions. In the present case, the police officers applied for bail before a Magistrate who refused bail and still the accused, without surrendering before the Magistrate, obtained an order for stay to move the Sessions Court. This direction of the Magistrate was wholly irregular and may be, enabled the accused persons to circumvent the principle of section 439, Criminal Procedure Code. We might have taken a serious view of such a course, indifferent to mandatory provisions, by the subordinate Magistracy but for the fact that in the present case the accused made up for it by surrender before the Sessions Court. Thus, the Sessions Court acquired jurisdiction to consider the bail application. It could have refused bail and remanded the accused to custody, but, in the circumstances and for the reasons mentioned by it, exercised its jurisdiction in favour of grant of bail. The High Court added to the conditions subject to which bail was to be granted and mentioned that the accused had submitted to the custody of court. We, therefore, do not proceed to upset the order on this ground. Had the circumstances been different we would have demolished the order of bail. We may frankly state that had we been left to ourselves we might not have granted bail hut, sitting under Article 136, do not feel that we should interfere with a discretion exercised by the two courts below. (emphasis given ours) This decision of the Supreme Court came for consideration before a learned Single Judge in this Court in the case of Bhramar and another v. State of Orissa.2 The learned Judge observed after quoting sub-section (1) of section 437 of the Code: This section contemplates grant of bail when a person accused of or suspected of the commission of any non- bailable offence is under arrest or detained or when he appears or is brought before a court. It is contended on behalf of the petitioners that the word appears used in section 437, sub-section (1) indicates that a person accused of or suspected of the commission of any non-bailable offence can be released on bail even if he is not arrested or detained or brought before a court, but he voluntarily appears before the court and moves for bail. The grant of bail to a person presupposes that he is in the custody of the police or of the court or if not already in such custody is under a restraint. When a person is arrested or detained or is brought to a court he is no doubt under a restraint. The words arrested and detained are used to signify arrest and detention by a police officer. The expressions appears and is brought, are used to signify appearance and arrest in obedience to a process of the court. The expression is brought before a court is used in relation to the issue of a warrant while the expression appears is used in relation to the issue of a summons. Sections 238 and 244, Criminal Procedure Code which relate to trial of warrant case by Magistrate also use similar expressions. These expressions appears to have been used in the same in section 437, Criminal Procedure Code. Appearance is also possible in two others ways. If a Magistrate issues a bailable warrant and the officer to whom the warrant is directed, releases an accused on his furnishing a bail bond, he is required to attend the court on the date fixed. In such cases, he appears in court in compliance with the bail-bond furnished by him. Similarly, a person knowing that a warrant or summons has been issued against him, may voluntarily surrender and, thus, submit himself to the jurisdiction of the court. Evidently, in such cases, the accused is under a restraint and he appears and moves for being enlarged on bail. If, however, he has not been arrested nor detained nor any process has been issued against him from the court, he cannot be said to be under a restraint and no bail will be granted to him merely because he appears before the court and prays for grant of bail in anticipation of any such action against him. A mere possibility of a person being arrested cannot amount to a restraint for the purpose of grant of bail under sections 436, 437 and 439, (emphasis added). Until he is arrested or detained, he is free to move about as he likes. On investigation the police may find that there is no sufficient reason to arrest him or on interrogation he may be able to offer satisfactory explanation which may convince the police that he is innocent. Thus, in my opinion, sections 437 and 439 do not confer powers on the Magistrate or the Court of Sessions or the High Court to grant bail to a person who had not been placed under restraint by arrest or otherwise.